First people arrive in North American Southwest, most likely from Asia via the Bering Land Bridge, a thousand-mile-wide strip of land connecting Alaska and Siberia during the Ice Age.

People live a nomadic lifestyle, hunting
animals and gathering plants for food.

8000 BC

Ice Age ends, Archaic Period begins. The wooly mammoth and many other species become extinct. People adapt by hunting smaller animals. Importance of wild plants
increases.

6500 BC

Plant
domestication begins in tropical Mesoamerica, first squash, then
maize and beans.

3500 BC

Maize
diffuses to central Mexico and from there northward to other areas of the
North American Southwest.

1600 BC

People
throughout the North American Southwest are cultivating maize. They begin
making pottery and settling down in permanent villages to tend
crops.

1000 BC

Complex
societies begin to appear in Mesoamerica.

200 BC

People
across the North American Southwest are living in permanent settlements,
cultivating maize, beans, and squash.

0

Christian calendar begins

AD 200

Complex
societies begin to form in the North American Southwest, north of
Mesoamerica.

AD 1000

Trade
increases within North American Southwest, extending south to Mesoamerica.

AD 1250

Drought forces mass migrations within the North American Southwest. About
the same time, Navajo and Apache ancestors arrive from the north.

AD 1492

Europeans arrive in the
Americas.

AD 1521

Spanish and Tlaxcalan
forces defeat Aztecs at Tenochtitlán (today Mexico City), ushering in the Spanish Colonial
Period in Mexico.

AD 1540

Coronado Expedition explores
the North American Southwest, traveling
as far
as Kansas. Fails to find fabled cities of gold.

AD 1560

Spanish mining towns are
established from Mexico City north to
Chihuahua.

AD 1598

Juan de Oñate Expedition begins
Spanish settlement of New Mexico.

AD 1700

Indian resistance is crushed as Spanish builda network of mines, haciendas, ranches, forts, and towns.

New forms of culture emerge in North American Southwest out of extensive
cultural exchange and intermarriage among Indians,Europeans, and
Africans.

AD 1821

Spanish Colonial Period
ends. Mexico gains independence
from Spain.

AD 1848

Annexation of the northern half of
the North American Southwest
is completed by United States, including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona.
Large numbers of Anglo-Americans flow into the region, introducing new cultural practices.

Demand
for handwoven textiles increases throughout the North American Southwest, as
tourists and collectors begin to recognize their value as works of art.

AD 2002

Cultural diversity thrives in the North American Southwest, now home to
people from around the world. Spanish and English are the dominant languages,
but many Indian societies maintain their distinct cultures, languages, and
identities.